The big buzz in the US blogosphere is George Bush’s admission that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with s11 [follow the link for the video].
BUSH: The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East.
QUESTION: What did Iraq have to do with it?
BUSH: What did Iraq have to do with what?
QUESTION: The attack on the World Trade Center.
BUSH: Nothing. Except it’s part of — and nobody has suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a — Iraq — the lesson of September 11th is take threats before they fully materialize, Ken. Nobody’s ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq.
Nobody except, well, Dick Cheney.
I don’t know what’s left, if anything, of the original justifications for the invasion of Iraq.
Elsewhere: More at Surfdom.
Bush’s body language as he suddenly realises how the “nothing” is going to sound is revealing. He actually rears back as he flails for words to tone it down.
Obviously he was so focussed on steering track to the soundbites du jour that he let some truth slip out. Is he capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time?
There is a new justification via Mark Steyn. He says
Don’t wait for trouble to start, jump in and begin it. Be proactive.
That is what Bush was doing all the while and, typically, he wasn’t even aware of it. A brilliant INTUITIVE leader!
LBJ could!
How much longer will American voters be content to watch this train wreck of an administration?
Well we’ll have no choice til 20 January 2009.
But I’ll be voting for the Dems in November.
Unfortunately, it’s much harder to come up with a catchy rhyme to mock Howard’s subservience to Dubya. “All the way with LBJ!” just rolls off the tongue so well.
In the poo with W?
Lick the tush of Georgie Bush?
So impeachment is out of the question?
What about after the mid-terms?
Look if they win the mid terms I think the Dems would be crazy to launch impeachment. After Clinton, it would almost set a precedent that any Congress of a different party would do so to a president of the other party. And it would never get a 2/3 majority (required to convict) in any concievable Senate. And it would make Cheney President. And cruel the Dems’ chances of taking back the White House in 09.
I’m afraid Bush’s high crimes and misdemeanours will have to be judged by history.
Anyway, though there could be a big 94 style reverse in the House, if you look at the numbers in the Senate (remembering only 1/3 of Senators are ever up for election at any given time – and the current third are those elected in 2000) you’d be brave to predict anything but a continued Republican majority. At best, a very small Dem majority.
But they’ll put Bush under lots of pressure if they make gains in the mid-terms.
Saddam has this week faced charges in court of genocide – specifically, killing up to 100,000 Kurds.
The critics call this terrorist monster’s removal from office a “high crime”?
They should now apologise.
My challenge is still open: kudos to the first lefty who puts their sincerity where their faux-indignation is and calls for Saddam’s immediate reinstatement to power – on grounds that his overthrow was “illegal” according to “international law.”
You’ve been running that line for years, C.L. Isn’t it about time you updated your talking points?
Gee, it’s a good thing they got rid of Saddam so that the killing of innocent people in Iraq would end…
…
Oh wait.
So Kurdish lives are worth more than the lives being lost in the insurgency?
Saddam in power = bad. People dying in a destabilised region also = bad. You can’t use one to justify the other, as if it’s an either/or equation. I would propose that compared to the US-led military juggernaut still occupying Iraq, a multilateral peacekeeping force agreed upon by a consensus of UN nations would look a lot less like aggressive annexation from the perspective of an Iraqi on the ground. By the same token, I don’t think an Iraqi mother would feel consoled by the fact that her child died in the crossfire zinging across a “free” Iraq instead of at the hand of an evil dictator.
C.L. is bang on the button. There seems to be some reality-averse posting from others though.
Iraq was a member of the greater Axis Of Evil. The connection with 9/11 and Iraq is that the old and rather shameful policy of sit back and let the woggies do whatever they do to one another as long as it does not effect us (and our supply of oil) suddenly looked silly. We cannot allow counties to harbour groups or individuals who have the willingness and wherewithall to inflict damage on our societies.
CL has been running with that point because you cannot address it. You cannot address it. You put your anti “overdog” pose, “I protest therefore I think” attitude over the sheer common sense of the clear proposition that Islamo facists want to kill us so we better let them know they’ll be sorry if they try.
How quickly you forget CL!
I’ve already accepted your challenge.
http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2006/07/24/civil-war-in-iraq/
At Quiggin’s I set forth a procedure where Saddam may be reinstated for one day, and one day only:
Recognition of international law, reassertion of Iraqi sovereignty, and prosecution under the rule of law of an ugly tyrant.
Win, win, win.
Kudos CL?
My response to CLs absurd postulation is this:
If I could undo all of the results of the invasion, with the undesirable consequence of putting Saddo back in power but with the desirable consequences of:
*undoing the deaths of 35-100,000 people, depending who you ask;
*stopping the civil war that goes on with no end in sight;
*keeping the secular baathist power in place as a strategic bulwark to (a) Iran (because as IF Saddam would allow them to acquire nukes) and (b) Al Qaeda (because any fool knows they were more enemies than friends, with vastly different agendas);
*undoing the enormous damage that has been done to America and her allies’ standing across the globe, but particularly in muslim nations and populations; and
* undoing the huge recruitment benefits Al Q have received from the invasion; then
Yes, I would do all of that.
Where were the Right when he was gassing Kurds? This never had anything to do with the horrific gassing of the Kurds. The west could care less about the poor Kurds- if they weren’t such a useful pawn most of the Bush admin wouldn’t be able to spell K-u-r-d. What a crock.
If he was in the process of gassing the kurds when we attacked, as opposed to more than a decade beforehand, then maybe THAT would have justified a genuine humanitarian intervention aka Kosovo.
The right will go to their graves lacking the honesty to admit they were wrong and that they fucked up on an incredible scale. That’s what happens when you try to justify Vietnam rather than learn your lessons.
When the US administration brings out a policy where they refuse to deal with dictators, and thereby cut off all their trade with China, Saudi Arabia, and all those strategically useful and barbaric dictatorships in central asia, THEN it might be possible to take the ‘knight in shining armour’ justification seriously.
The full-text of the press conference includes the clearly argued case of why Saddam Hussein was removed.
When Saddam was in power, thousands of innocent Iraqis were being starved, tortured and murdered. The people doing this to them were not being brought to justice and did not live in any fear of that ever happening under the patronage of the UN and major client states such as France and Russia. There was no hope of this situation ever changing.
It is terrible that now that Iraq has the opportunity to become a modern democracy that those who are threatened by this type of society – ex-Baathists and islamofascists, are killing thousands of innocent civilians. The significant and important difference between the Saddam era (and Sudan/Darfur, for example) and now is that those committing the atrocities live in fear of being brought to justice, and the Iraqi people, the 12 million who voted, have hope of a significantly better life.
I find it strange that the Democrats in the US who want to be rid of Bush so easily forget those wonderful words of JFK – âLet every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.â?
Was JFK wrong? Why doesn’t this apply to Iraq? Are they not a friend??
Yes, President Thieu, the last Head of Stae of South Vietnam, couldn’t hear those words without shedding tears of gratitude.
Exactly, Katz – look what happened to South Vietnam once the US pulled out.
Makes you proud to be an anti-(US)war activitist to hear about the re-education camps.
God on ya! – you guys won that one.
It must be obvious to all and sundry that Dubya has well and truly lost it – if he ever had it in the first place. It is such a beautiful case of schadenfreude (?) to see Dubya realise that it ain’t ever gonna go the way he and his neo-con buddies had figured. It must have seemed so easy back in 2002/3. We can imagine how the neo-cons must have imagined the Iraqi adventure would pan out. The scene is the Oval Office, late 2002. Rumsfeld is laying out the sequence…..
1. Search for cassus belli. WMDs is good. Link with 9/11 is better. Even though neither are true. (Although me, I think that the giant machine for shredding people – the one that our own glorious leader referred to should have been reason enough to invade).
2. Send in troops.
3. Watch admiringly on the FOX Network as the troops advance over garlands of flowers strewn by gratful Iraqis.
4. Give out contracts to buddies, making sure Halliburton gets first pick.
5. Sit back and admire place in history books.
Instead Dubya is literally flailing around in a quagmire that is entirely of his owm making. The performance of the Yanks in Iraq is even making WWestmoreland look like one of the great Captains. The trouble is that the Democrats in America ain’t much better. And let’s face it. Something has to be done. Maybe all foreign forces should just withdraw and leave Iraq to have its civil war. And at the end, after all that blood, what will emerge is a regime that will closely resemble that previous one..
Cheers..
Au contraire, Razor, mon ami, we lefties didn’t win it, the Americans proved themselves to be less steadfast than they promised they’d be.
In other words, we lefties understand more about human nature and human frailty than you everso devout folks on the Right.
“The Currency Lad” was a nineteenth century Australian newspaper, Katz. My blog isn’t eponymous – which is to say, it isn’t named after my nic. The real DLP no longer exists so actually it has no members. Your rant at Quiggin’s would have been improved with a few more minutes of googling.
You might also like to google “Mabo” and “terra nullius” before you make amusing arguments about how sensitive the British were to notions of sovereignty and the rule of law.
You’d also have to explain whether or not you accept as licit the Clinton Administration’s Iraq Liberation Act – which presupposed that Saddam’s sovereignty was more or less defunct.
And where should the impeachments stop?
“If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program.”
- Bill Clinton
“In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members… It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons.”
- Hillary Clinton
There will be no impeachment.
That anti-wiretapping judge, however, she may have to walk.
Wait. You mean Clinton was president and prosecuted the War in Iraq? Who is the Bush fellow then I’ve been hearing and reading about since 2000?
Katz doesnt win at all, there is this get out of jail free clause “for one day, and one day only”
This is like saying “Yes, you were right to take out Saddam but you didnt do it my way so you are wrong.”
Apparently lefties understand more about human frailty, I guess it is because they make such a careeer out of it.
Thieu did shed actual tears, I believe, at being forced to accede to the Paris peace accord which he knew would end with his country’s destruction. He knew the north would never abide by their commitment not to invade. The US did not return to save the South from invasion by the north, as it was pledged to do under the agreement. Bravo, Dr Kissinger. (/OT)
CL: yes, that was a shocking decision. It will surely be overturned on appeal.
1. Congratulations rog for finally understanding this post.
2. Where does CL stipulate anything about timeframes?
3. CL’s fixation with the Clinton’s is nothing short of breathtaking.
4. And his capacity for distraction and special pleading is phenomenal.
This from someone who introduced Captain Bligh to the discussion.
under international law a country cannot willy nilly invade another one.
It was the USA,UK and Australia that invaded not the UN as there were NO blue berets.
This was quite illegal as the UK Attorney General pointed out in a leaked note.
CL nor any other invasion apologist has ever tried to say how Saddam got to the top of the ‘bad dictators ‘ heap.
Others have killed more both in absolute and relative terms.
on the other hand we can thank CL and his band of invasion apologists for giving Iran its greatest sphere of influence in the ME.
given the enmity between Persians and Arabs that is no mean feat.
The spectacular success of democracy in Iraw well forecast by Messrs Scowcroft and Eagleberger shows what excellent research went into this splendid adventure
I also congratulate Iraw.
The Law is an Ass. It’s practicioners are rent seekers with little or no conscience about the consequences to others of their actions, and who hamstring a society more than they assist it.
This applies to “International Law” also?
Got to say I kinda agree with you on the fundamentals there, Homer. When you look at the current mayhem — caused and pepetuated by the insurgents and sectarians, not the CoW — you have to almost wonder if under Hussein the Iraqis just got the leadership they deserved. Almost but not quite.
it is between Iraq and a hard place
“Where were the Right when he was gassing Kurds?”
If one studies back issues of Quadrant from that period (1988-89), one finds that the Right were much exercised by the threats to peace and democracy posed by Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela and Xanana Gusmao, and worried that Ronald Reagan was going soft on the Russians.
HANSARD – the left were checking their stock valuations…NOT
Senator VALLENTINE —My question is addressed to the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade. In light of the Minister’s statement condemning the use of chemical weapons by Iraq on the Kurds in the north-east of that country and in particular the attack on Halabja in March when 5,000 people were killed and 10,000 injured, I ask the Minister whether the Government is prepared to reconsider its earlier refusal to treat victims of these attacks in Australia. As the earlier refusal was based on the alleged effect on Australia’s even-handed position regarding the Iran-Iraq war, is the Government now prepared to follow the example of the United Kingdom, which has put humanitarian reasons before such political concerns?
In light of the Government’s highly commendable work on a chemical warfare ban at the international level and also in respect of the answer given to Senator Wood last week, how can Australia maintain its commitment in this area when public servants with expertise in this field have been moved on from the peace, disarmament and arms control branch of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade without being replaced by staff at the same level?
“The lesson of September 11th is take threats before they fully materialize.” This is yet another example of life imitating art. Thirty years ago the internationally renowned strategic analyst Professor Monty Python introduced the world to the secretes of the Welsh martial art known as LLAP-Goch. The key idea is simple:
In case you all wanted Gareth’s answer:
Senator GARETH EVANS:
Australia declined an Iranian request to receive chemical warfare victims in Australia on the basis that they could be better treated closer to Iran and that Australian hospitals had limited capacity, and that remains the Government’s approach. Our humanitarian concerns on this matter and similar matters are effectively pursued, we believe, by other means. On 14 April Mr Duffy announced that Australia would contribute $100,000 to an International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) appeal for the victims of the Iran-Iraq war and some of the funds would be used by the ICRC to assist victims of the chemical attacks on Halabja. Australia also contributed $70,000 in 1984 to the previous ICRC appeal for victims of the war.
On the last part of Senator Vallentine’s question, as I explained to Senator Wood last week, the Government continues to allocate a very high priority and a considerable number of staff to the pursuit of Australia’s arms control and disarmament objectives. There is no question that adequate resources and expertise do still exist in the peace, arms control and disarmament branch of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to ensure that Australia continues to play a positive and active role in efforts towards the achievement of a chemical weapons convention. As to Senator Vallentine’s momentous revelation that some staff changes have occurred, she should recognise that in a department which manages the country’s foreign service, rotation of staff between different policy areas and posts is unavoidable and, provided it is properly managed, highly desirable.
YOu people are all lying.
Saddam almost definitely was in on 9/11. Al Quaeda and those other terrorist agencies don’t work Pro-Bono. They are very well financed.
But having SAID that Bush stated both before and after the war that he didn’t have anything on Saddam being involved with 9/11.
Thats his position. Its a mistaken position but its always BEEN his position nonetheless.
So all of you here are out in force in a sort of lying competition. Lies built on lies built on more lies.
Shame on you all.
Still no lefty takers for my Return Saddam To Power Challenge? Come on all y’all, his overthrow was “illegal”!
Shorter Birdman:
Bush is a liar, but I still love him as much as I hate lefties.
You are the liar Katz, you say that the breach of the peace accord by the N Vietnamese was due to “the Americans proved themselves to be less steadfast than they promised they’d be”
Thats what they call weazel words, a gross misrepresentation of the truth.
North Vietnam broke the peace accord.
PanelbeaterBird …”YOu people are all lying”
Lying about what? Saddam, as the leader of a Sunni/Baathist regime, despised and hated Osama and Al Quaeda and the brand of Islamic fundamentalism he stood for. And Osama despised and hated Saddam. The proposition that “Saddam almost definitely was in on 9/11″ is an out and out falsehood. The only reason that it EVER got any currency is that the Yanks were desperate to come up with a credible cause to invade Iraq, and they figured, given American’s well documented knowledge of geography and international politics, that all those bunches of rag heads were pretty much the same.
OK. Maybe we can believe that “Al Quaeda and those other terrorists… are very well financed” but the truth is that terrorism is, in reality, a very cheap way to wage war. What’s the old saying? If you have an air force you drop precision guided bombs and get the thanks of your country. If you don’t have access to a lot of expensive military hardware then you drive a precision guided airplane or truck into whatever target you have selected for whatever reasons, and wind up on the FBI most wanted list. My guess is that Osama was well able to fund whatever operations he needed out of his own fortune and the generous donations that he got/gets from other Saudis who want to see his brand of Islam rule the world. Whatever Al Quaeda has spent, it ain’t much. Maybe a few million.
And for the statement “Lies built on lies built on more lies”. This blog has more sensible reasoned debate on it that most things that can be read in the blogosphere. Unlike the hysterical ranting that seems to come from the right. Why is that when it comes to reasoned arguments, the right, and Panelbeater Bird appear to have taken the lesson from Goebbels and Hitler to heart. Tell the big lie and surround it with a few half truths. It might just appear to be plausible enough for a few suckers to believe. But then again, there are some people who believe that Elvis is still alive.
Cheers…
No Katz.
Bush is just mistaken or he’s trying to avoid the commie-witch-hunt. Or he’s using shorthand for “we don’t have absolute proof”.
But Saddams fingerprints are all over BOTH those WTC attacks.
BBEP says “under international law a country cannot willy nilly invade another one.”
Quite right. You need a reason.
Under Declaration of Human Rights Article 12 :
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
Are we all agreed on that?
Thanks for your character assessment of me Rog. You know how much respect I have for your opinion.
Q: Which nation stood guarantor of South Vietnam’s independence at the Paris Peace Conference?
A: The United States of America.
Q: Which nation did not honour its commitments to South Vietnam?
A: The United States of America. (What price? What burden?)
BBEP seems to have fogotten the 17 security council resolutions. And that Saddam broke the magnanimous ceasefire within 3 weeks.
And that effectively they never were not in a state of war.
Rog said that
“Under Declaration of Human Rights Article 12 :
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.”
Fair enough. And this is not a bad statement of intent. But it don’t do anything to prevent arbitrary interference. At best it offers the aggrieved party a mode of redress.
Are we all agreed on that?
Why is that left wing blogs seem to be populated by large numbers of right wingers who appear determined to dominate the argument. One does not read right wing blogs and find large numbers of lefties trying to dominate proceedings, and resorting to playing the person, not the ball when they don’t get their way? Just curious, is all.
Cheers…
That’s being a bit silly, isn’t it, Katz? The North Vietnamese invaded in defiance of the Agreement – as the South knew very well it would. And the US sold the South out by not re-comitting troops to its defence. Nixon was pre-occupied with Watergate at the time.
So this very post (and all others) passes through the filters of the National Security Administration (Hi, folks, I know you’re listening, especially after I type the next words) under the ECHELON Program.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON
The Australian government allows and encourages the US government to do this.
Does any country in the world have a cassus belli to protect us from this interference to our privacy … or correspondence?
“OK. Maybe we can believe that âAl Quaeda and those other terrorists⦠are very well financedâ? but the truth is that terrorism is, in reality, a very cheap way to wage war”
No thats not true.
Its actually incredibly expensive. You are thinking about the variable cost of a single attack.
Silly old Thieu. He thought a promise was a promise.
Britain sprang to the aid of Belgium in 1914.
Turned out to be jolly inconvenient.
But Earl Grey thought that Britain’s promise to protect Belgium made so many decades earlier, was worth a lot more than the paper it was written on.
American paper must be so much more valuable than British paper.
Yeah sure katz, the US did not break the peace accord your friends the N Vietnamese did, why is it always the US that has to go around pcking up your dirty laundry?
One of these days you might learn to do your own washing.
“Silly old Thieu. He thought a promise was a promise.”
But of course he didn’t. He knew exactly what would happen.
Katz, your posts are becoming incoherent.
CL,
I actually believed, and still believe that it would have been preferable for the Iraqi civilian population to have had a coup at the top…. and see if any changes would have taken place, rather than some clumsy, badly planned invasion on the cheap, into a country that had had 30 solid years of war and dictatorship.
It was only a matter of time until a decent (ie not failed) coup was finally organised, and Saddam would have been history. There was a huge groundswell for change within Iraq and on the Sunni side of things and yes…. the Baâathists would have stayed in power – but things would have improved over time. The US and UK already controlled Iraqi airspace and had for 10 years by then, and the Kurds had been protected.
Much like NOT A-Bombing Moscow or Beijing during the Cold War….Leaving Saddam or possibly a new Baâathist regime in place, as the âleast worstâ option beating out the âdestroying the country to save itâ? plan, by I donât know⦠maybe 100K lives and counting?
And as for timing â the USA handed back a generational âget out jail freeâ card by invading Iraq. Up till then, they had carte blanche to get Osama and the moral high ground to take on Nth Korea and Iran over their nuke programs through the UN, and also finish the job in Afghanistan and Pakistan and maybe even push Israel and the Palestinians over the line finallyâ¦.. And what did they doâ¦.yeahâ¦.thatâs rightâ¦.
Lets open a second and even bigger front for Islamic terrorists, to join up with Iraqi nationalists and get a civil war going between the Sunni and Shiites in Iraq yah! and give more power to Tehran andâ¦â¦brilliant, this is â fucking brilliantâ¦.and then weâll have the whole Islamic street against us. And of course weâll undermine the UN, so it loses any legitimacy and oh yeah, weâll piss off young 1st generation muslim kids in the west⦠so they start bombing cities in the west â yes, yes, go on!
If this Administration had been running things during the Cold War, I reckon weâd all have be blown to the shitter. Thatâs my opinion, anyway.
Does anyone else remember what happened in the wake of Gulf War I. The Shias in the south and the Kurds in the north were positively encouraged to rise up in rebellion against Saddam. Then they had another think about it, let the Iraqis use their helicopters – that was written into the cease fire agreement – and then sat back and abandoned the Shia and the Kurds to the tender mercies of Saddam. Had the Americans and British and Australians and the numerous others in the first coalition actually followed through with their promises, then all those years worth of UN sanctions, a further invasion, countless thousands of civilian and military dead might not have occurred. And America would be trapped in an un-winnable war where the best outcomes are probably going to be an endless supply of trained and battle hardened jihadists, the lasting enmity of Islamic nations around the globe and the emergence of Iran as a nuclear armed regional super-power. All in all the adventure on Iraq has turned into one of the greatest foreign policy own-goals since Vietnam.
Cheers…
Sorry. Previous post should read..”And America would NOT be trapped in an un-winnable war..”
Here is where you will find the proof Strummer…. If you look hard enough.
http://graemebird.wordpress.com/2006/08/23/liars-suckers-naifs-and-prize-dupes-at-prodeo/
Hey Katz;
Wrong, after the collapse of the USSR funds to the now unified Vietnam dried up leaving the socialist dream the failed state that it is today.
So, in 2006, how much trust should the leaders of US clients states around the world put in US steadfastness?
C.L.,
I too am puzzled by the obsession you have with the vile murders of 250,000 Kurds, and the correlation with what the present US administration has gifted/foist upon Iraq.
Would you agree that the bulk of the murders occurred in 1987/1988, and that as Kurds flooded into Turkey, the US govt through various agencies became aware that slaughter was underway, and that poison gas had been used as a weapon?
Are you seriously trying to propose the unarguably demonic evils perpetrated upon Kurds by Hussein a full 25 years previous as a reason underpinning the US invasion of Iraq in 2003?
And if so, do you absolve the past half dozen administrations who took no action, chiefly the Reagan/Bush govts who were being informed regularly of the volume of murders occurring?
Jo,
Imagine yourself after 30 solid years of war and dictatorship and you are now going to stage a coup….what would you give your chances? 0.001%, or better?
Have you ever staged a coup?
Its this dreamy woolly headed thinking that is leading us astray and making us easy pickings for any ratbag that can put up a half decent fight.
Under Clinton the CIA tried a number of coups.
And it needlessly got a lot of Iraqis killed.
Chalabi TOLD the CIA that they were hopelessly compromised and they’s get people killed for no good reason. But Clinton was too gutless to take Saddam on head-on and the CIA is a joke and have had a vendetta going with Chalabi ever since. They are so goddamned hateful.
Anyhow its a bad policy. But targeting the top 2 000 guys for assasination is a great deal more doable. Its one thing for Saddam to get about the place hiding in Palaces. But if you are knocking off the top 2 000 guys eventually the will hand Saddams head on a plate as a peace offering.
I’ll tie in Micks comments with Vietnam â?And America would NOT be trapped in an un-winnable war..â?
After the US “lost” the war in Vietnam the
a) N Vietnamese sponsor USSR went bust
b) unified Vietnam became a mecca for skin flint western tourists
c) unified Vietnam became a departure point for vietnamese who wanted a life free from persecution
d) US economy became the dominant global economy.
You’re right Rob.
The Paris Accords of Jan 1973, at which no representative of the South Vietnamese government was present when they were signed, in and of themselves represented a reneging of the “any burdens” promise.
Thus you are also wrong, Rob, because in January 1973 Nixon was not yet threatened in any way by the looming shadow of Watergate. Its not until May 1973 that public hearings began. One would need to look elsewhere for an explanation of US pusillaminousness
But didn’t the north invade in 1975, though, when Watergate was alive and kicking? Must consult Wiki. But this is all OT and against the comments policy so I’ll bow out.
My challenge is still open: kudos to the first lefty who puts their sincerity where their faux-indignation is and calls for Saddamâs immediate reinstatement to power – on grounds that his overthrow was âillegalâ? according to âinternational law.â?
Death to comments policies everywhere! Long may the derailment continue (pleasantly, though, to be sure).
The genuine evil of the United States’ invasion of Iraq in 2003 isn’t that it was illegal. The old rules of ‘aggressive’ war didn’t make much sense in the Geneva era, and certainly don’t now. The evil wasn’t that they killed a lot of innocent people. They did, but as the derechistas on this thread are well pointing out, killing has always been an arm of business in that part of the world. The evil wasn’t that the war was about sloughing off domestic fear of terrorism onto a convenient butcher, because, as CL rightly says, Saddam had it coming.
No, the genuine evil of the United States’ invasion of Iraq was the bargain-basement selloff of all of the USA’s political capital in the post-USSR era. Put really simply, because they outright failed to plan for what-comes-next! A genuine war of liberation would have been worth fighting. Everyone had time for the Yankees in the 1990s, when there were no Soviets and not much going on, why’d they have to make it so difficult for their supporters to support them?
I assume Phill’s quoting him/herself there, and all the best of luck to anyone who wants to try unscrambling that particular egg.
I agree with most of what I think Liam is saying there. But I could be wrong
No Rob,
The Paris Accords, signed in Jan 1973, contained in them the promise made by the US to cease intervention in South Vietnam. This signified the backdown. This is what made Thieu cry.
By 1975, when the final North Vietnamese offensive took place, Nixon had already left the White House and Ford was president.
jeez rog,
there were coups being plotted all the time by sections of the iraqi military…pity that alot of intell. was being done via video in langley rather, than on the ground during the 90′s, they might have done a better job helping out…i’ll go dig out some pictures of iraqi generals in a hole for you.
Possibly CL, only started reading the newspapers in 1988, cause he seems to have missed all the rest of that disgusting, disgraceful war, all those big old fashioned tank battles, the gassing of Iranian soldiers, Iran using child soliders as suicide bombers – (hey, now there’s an idea), Saddam finding out the US were two-timing him with Contra deals! And 1-3 million people dead – it was 8 whole years of fun, fun, fun before Halabja.
Youthful armchair critics and pundits just have no stomach for drawn out conflicts anymore – like this recent flare-up in South Lebanon . We got 18 years of occupation in South Lebanon to argue about in my day! Hrrumph.
I’d just like everyone to acknowledge that I seem to be succeeding in reconverting Rob to the true path of righteousness and to the indecent Left.
Comrades, it’s a modern-day Reconquista.
Jo, Saddam is thought to have killed 300,000 people (plus). Whenever you press war opponents on this they invariably come up with the same boilerplate response: “Yeah but, like, there were internal contradictions ‘n that which means that, like, eventually there would have been an uprising, like, and everything would have been OK.”
Total rubbish, of course.
But if such a situation arose, we would have seen a civil war whose bloodiness and magnitude would have dwarfed the anti-constitutional, illegal violence we seen in Iraq now. With no Coalition troops present, Iran would have swooped on the country with far more voracity than we’ve seen in reality. It’s very unlikely that this fanciful scenario would have eventuated any time soon, though, as I argued. Saddam was a stayer and he would have used WMD (again) and gone ahead with plans to acquire more in time. (As Bill and Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Teddy Kennedy, Sandy Berger and many others argued before the invasion).
North Korea’s uranium enrichment mania went metaphorically ballistic in the late 90s under the Clinton Administration so I’m not sure why you’ve raised that in the context of what Bush purportedly should have, or has, done. On Afghanistan, many commentators on the left opposed military action there because of the “Soviet experience,” the “harsh Afghan winter” and because it might become “another Vietnam.” More recently, lefties have started pretending they believe Afghanistan is the “good” war, as opposed to the Evil Iraq War. They like to think nobody remembers their earlier stance.
Osama bin Laden was emboldened to pursue his strategy after watching successive capitulations of the Clinton Administration – as he himself has made clear.
Recent terror plots within Germany and Canada and elsewhere demonstrate that jihadists are at war with the West – they don’t particularly care whether or not specific countries invaded Iraq. The worst terror attack against Australians occurred before the invasion and also had nothing to do with Iraq. The “Islamic Street,” as you call it, has no particular obsession with Iraq insofar as target choice is concerned. The argument that it does is a lazy and stupid lie peddled by BDS-suffering Western liberals who are unhappy about losing elections throughout the Anglophone world.
Iran yesterday attacked an oil-rig flagged to a NATO member and has hamfistedly cultivated massive suspicion in the Arab world because of its commitment to Hezbollah-style destabilisation. Far from being in the ascendant, Tehran is proving how easy it is to rope a dope. Ahmadinejad – whose wiliness is greatly exaggerated – should start watching his own back:
In relation to the UN and the EU, have a look at how well they’re doing in relation to mobilising peacekeepers for Lebanon. About 50 nations gave some degree of support to the invasion of Iraq. The Lebanon operation – notwithstanding its status as an exercise in “legitimate” multilateralism – isn’t attracting a quarter of that commitment. It’s totally FUBAR – as are most UN “military” expeditions. Those sophisticated exemplars of foreign policy “realism”, the French, were going to lead the new force but they’ve outdone themselves by inaugurating a new concept in international relations: pre-emptive surrender. The UN’s specialty is gang rape and relief ops – in that order. Bush has been proved a superior multilateralist than any of the Europeans or Kofi Annan.
Bush was also the first US President to embrace a two-state solution for the Israel-Palestine conflict. That it is continually pushed beyond realisation is the fault of groups like Hamas and Hezbollah – and the nodding and winking of the wider Arab world (with a few exceptions) and Iran – which will not accept Israel’s right to exist.
Mick, contrary to cliche-peddlers in the media, most jihadists are not particularly “battle-hardened” and most of their victims are Muslims. And Iran’s march to nuclear weaponisation has nothing to do with the Bush Administration but stopping that march is only conceivable under the President’s eponymous doctrine. When the time comes, the Arab world will carry on for the cameras even as they flood Langley with intell on how best to terminate the Mullahs’ play for regional dominance.
You expect critical thinking from the left but, these days, in vain.
My mistake. Funny, I thought he was still around in ’76.
Katz {at 11:29am}:
Not long at all ….. but what will History call it? Hurricane Katrina II? The Katrina Impeachment? (sorry Kim, the situation is serious enough, and worsening, for the Democrats to take the risk; if Cheney is in pokey he won’t become Mr Prez either). Katrina’s Revenge? Tornado Katrina?
Iraq is bad but it’s Katrina that will get them,
Katz is playing clever dick with semantics again, the Paris Peace accord was signed by all parties incl RVN representative Tran Van Lam.
US Congress cut aid from $1B to $700M in Aug 1974, 11 days after Nixon resignation.
In December 1974 N Vietnam attacks S Vietnam (and breaks Paris Peace accord)
Evidence of any “reneging” by not providing “severe retaliatory action” by the US was not given until 14 Jan 1975 and Pres Ford later confirms that the US will not re enter the war.
N Vietnam continues to attack and take S Vietnam, which falls in May 1975.
Sorry, CL, how exactly is it the UNs fault that member nations arent contributing sufficient forces?
They’re already running 17 peacekeeping operations, with some 86,000 troops under UN command. Then the US and UK (who both refuse to blue helmet their own forces – influencing silly impressionable politicians in Au) have recently demanded 17,000 UN troops in Darfur. And now the UN has to find 15,000 for Lebanon (and possibly, if Australia quits pissing around with their own counter-productive “green-helmet” neo-colonial ambitions) a few 1000s more in Timor.
We all know the UN has problems and needs reform, but surely, even you can understand why the Lebanon force must be blue-helmet. You want to send the marines in?
It’s a murky history. I’d forgotten how mendacious the whole thing was.
January 17 1972 Nixon writes a letter to Thieu warning him that his refusal to sign the Paris Accords, which had been negotiated without any input from the South Vietnamese government would render it impossible for the United States to continue assistance to South Vietnam.
January 23 1973 The Paris Peace Accords were signed. Initially, Thieu refused to sign the Accords, but Nixon promised to come to the aid of South Vietnam if the communists violated the terms of the peace treaty, and on that basis Thieu agreed to instruct Tran Van Lam to sign.
Then this:
Ford refuses to honour the promise given by Nixon to Thieu.
Case closed.
Mick Strummer [at 1:22pm]
that was something that almost brought the anti-Saddam campaign undone …. you see, meatworks all over the world have a big machine for shredding leftover bits and pieces (sometimes called a hogger); why would someone, even Ude, have to invent one? Ordinary meatworkers started asking very awkward questions about the veracity of the rest of the news they were getting about Iraq. Occam’s Razor is as sharp in a boning room as it is a faculty of philosophy,
Everyone:
Hands up all those who think the United States’ former ally, Saddam Hussein, was simply misguided misunderstood Arab nationalist who should be set free? Okay. Now hands up all those think Saddam Hussein was a monster who ruined his country, divided the Arabs and committed all manner of evil and so should be executed as swiftly as possible? Okay. Thank you.
CL
Osama was probably emboldened as Republicans were taking up all the airspace with some shonky sex scandal and impeachment bullshit.
I had no problem with the US taking out Al Queda after 9/11, and dragging the Taliban with them, I was pissed that the US seriously downgraded the mission and opened up a second front in Iraq and didn’t finish the job in Afghanistan either militarily, politically, strategically, or economically.
Pakistan was the centre of the nuclear proliferation in the 90’s, North Korea were buyers.
Moderate muslims were shocked by 9/11 and Bali – Iraq changed peoples opinions – Osama’s stock went up, not down after the invasion. It’s going to take time to get them all back on side.
The Khuzestan district was the where the whole Iraq-Iran war started in 1980 etc – oil rich disputed terrority.
The UN needed to be totally reformed and re-built from the ground up, that was obvious. Undermining what little legitimacy it had left, by the COW, was not the smart thing to do surely?
CL,
Using Osama to back your position up on Clinton – Jesus F. Christ mate – pretty low using that pyschopathic scumbag’s opinion to back up yours.
Next, you’ll be quoting Saddam, to back your new position as to why the Iranian leadership is a such push-over.
I don’t know if this is quite the right way to put it. Some of the key players seemed to have a plan alright – ‘democratisation’ at the barrel of a gun. And then the dominos fall. And so the action which took place was significantly more evil than if it had been based simply on a lack of foresight.
A genuine war of liberation would indeed have been worthwhile. The one that happened was doomed long before the military intervention began. Somewhere around the time the state department got shafted, maybe.
Some American friends have found Spike Lee’s New Orleans film, the first part just screened on TV there, incredibly moving. It’s documentary footage with minimal narration, screened over two nights. Watch out for it when it screens here.
“When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts.”
The power of its images may be very hard for this administration to shake.
No Jo, bin Laden wasn’t interested in the Lewinski scandal. (Thoughts of Whitney Houston kept him occupied in that department).
He was interested in – which is to say, emboldened by – the Clinton Administration’s responses to the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the embassy bombing in Kenya, the embassy bombing in Tanzania and the bombing of the USS Cole. For several years Clinton did nothing but surrender. He also vaguely supported bin Laden and ignored real possibilities to capture him.
Then he bombed an aspirin factory in Sudan. As ya do. Despite your claim that the “moderate Muslim” world was keen for bin Laden to be pursued in those early days, the missile strikes on Afghanistan – meant to strike at bin Laden and his supporters – led to huge Muslim protests around the globe. For his part, bin Laden vowed to retaliate.
But Clinton was the smart President, right?
The UN destroyed its own credibility. Nowadays, it is less successful as a multilateralist organisation than the Coalition that invaded Iraq. Fifty nations for Iraq (Bush) versus a couple of inflatable dingies and a half-dozen French pastry chefs for Lebanon (Kofi).
Oh and who can forget how shocked – shocked! – many Muslims were about 9/11?
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
I’m right with you there girlfriend. So let’s invade the US, the UK, Australia, whatever. Hell lets invade blogs.
However I am appalled that LP is willing to provide a voice for so many objectively Kim Il-sung supporters. I mean no one on this thread is calling for the immediate invasion of a WMD-enabled terrorist-backing North Korea.
What? That’s a spurious fallacy? Well I never. Who woulda thunk such things could happen on blog threads.
Since the NoKos went irreversibly nuclear under Bill Clinton, they have – alas – been beyond regime change.
Far from repudiating the Iraq War, what happened there underlines the importance of acting before it’s too late. As Hillary Clinton pointed out, Saddam wanted nukes and he would have pursued them.
But not anymore.
When I last looked at this post there were about 20 comments on it.
To save me reading the thread, is C.L. still arguing that Lefties are responsible for Saddam and want him back and that the free world sold Vietnam down the tube? Is rog participating with assists? Has C.L. yet mentioned the evils of Whitlam and Hawke? I take it for granted that Clinton is responsible for everything bad that’s ever happened?
If anyone could also let me know if C.L., rog, etc. have a master database of Iraq thread comments and I’ve actually read an identical thread 50 times in the past two years, it really would be much appreciated.
OMG! Am I prescient or what? While I was writing that comment, C.L. was writing a comment all about the Clintons!
Silly me, putting up a post about Bush and expecting to debate the actions of the current administration and not the Vietnam War and the Clintons!
Jo, my first answer to your post is held up in moderation. LP editor, if you please?
Referring to bin Laden’s stated motivation for attacking Western – and, more specifically, US – interests is not meant to “back up” my view of Clinton. It is simply the widely accepted strategic rationale by which the man himself was actuated. He decided America in the 90s was the “weak horse.”
Under Clinton, it was.
I’ll get it for you, C.L.
Gee, you could be an Iranian strategic analyst, CL.
My apologies to Birdy as well. I haven’t been in front of a computer since 3pm, and some of his comments were also caught in the filter. I’ve deleted the abusive ones, and let the rest through.
I haven’t actually commented on Vietnam, Kim.
?
The Iraq War’s political and strategic antecedents were played out in the 90s – you should be aware of this.
Thanks Kimmie.
I was just being flippant, C.L. It was Rob who was on about Vietnam before I stopped watching the thread, I think, now that I cast my mind back. I really was just saying I have little motivation to read the rest because I have the feeling a lot of these issues have been debated in exactly the same terms before.
Maybe so Kim, but I agree with Liam that it’s been pretty fun. Katz has even stopped being mean to me.
Yes indeed Kim, this is why I’m gradually cutting and running from blogs. Ain’t heard nothing new (or even funny) from the usual suspects in a sloth’s orgasm.
It’s the same tired old shopworn responses peddled about (and from all sides) whenever it comes to geopoltics and culture wars. I like a bit of flirting, fighting and fooling around but really there’s just now too many dreary little turds without the wit or spit to punch new holes in their pianola rolls.
And it’s not like the real word gives a shit about their rodomantades and sub-Alan Jones one liners, or the responses.
I’m off now to listen to Basil Kirchin, early Rod Stewart and the Diva soundtrack while wrestling with the new version of Vegas.
Don’t wait up.
Yup, it looks like another Iraq quagmire, er, quagmire.
Wha? Did he voice that thought before it fully materialised?
I think one Michael Barone summed it up quite well when he said
“Our covert enemies don’t want the Islamo-fascists to win. But in some corner of their hearts, they would like us to lose.”
You’re just on the wrong thread, Nabs.
You could be discussing Rocky Horror:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2006/08/21/oh-man-there-is-no-planet-sun-or-star-could-hold-you-if-you-but-knew-what-you-are/#comment-131948
Or my taste in swimsuits:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2006/08/23/not-quite-naked-feminist-knitting-circle-xi/
I think it was Katz who introduced the Vietnam thread diversion.
Bad Katz.
“I don’t know what’s left, if anything, of the original justifications for the invasion of Iraq.”
Oh I don’t know about that Kim. You might simply try looking in Afghanistan for the answers. You do remember that noble venture too don’t you?
Nothing says wit, reason and openness to change like calling people you disagree with “turds” before sulking off to listen to 61 year-old Rocking Rod.
OK I’m back, just because I wanna poke holes in poor old obby’s latest tomfoolery.
I think one Nabakov summed it up quite well when he said
âSome people are not so much interested in whether we win or lose but rather in the opportunity to lash out because if they hurt why shouldn’t everyone else.â?
I mean really obby what is the point of you? You’ve stopped mentioning the smoko room. They kicked you out because you’re a boring humourless crank now?
And why do you keep coming to this site since your comments over the years make it clear you think it’s full of pyschologically warped traitors?
Do you just want attention? Hoping your quavering petulant old voice and handful of grubby little clippings will at least trigger a human response from someone, anyone?
You’re a perfect example of what I was talking about before. A wheezing old player piano hoping against hope your ivories will get tickled one last time. Consider this a farewell tickle from me. You are surplus to my world’s requirements. Not even worth rendering down for industrial chemicals and trace elements.
Garn, get out on out of here you silly old fool.
And oh yes, interesting how some people assume I was talking about them when I mentioned no names.
Still, if you want to try on the shoe…
Now I’m gonna listen to “You’re So Vain” – I bet you think this comment is about you don’t you…
Looks like the Stewart eight-track is busted.
I thought it was vain to walk into the party and judge certain undisclosed participants as “turds” who weren’t amusing enough for you, Nab. Remember to wear shades up in Nova Scotia.
If this thread doesn’t get nicer all round, I’m going to close it before I go to sleep.